THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIENCE, GUILT, AND MORALITY

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There are three major theories about the nature and ontogenetic origins of moral codes; moral universalism, moral developmentalism and moral relativism. The three theories differ dramatically in what they have to say about a) the presence or absence of conscience, guilt and the superego at different ages and in different cultures; b) the rational vs. arbitrary foundations of judgments about what's a vice and what's a virtue; and c) the extent to which moral codes are either products of socialization or examples of self-constructed knowledge. The goal of the proposed research is to determine what's universal, what's relative and what develops in moral codes. This will be done a) by documenting the presence or absence of the moral sentiment at different ages in India and the United States; b) by examining the rational and non-rational ideas underlying the moral codes of children and adults in those two cultures; and c) by assessing the role of socialization processes in the ontogeny of moral understandings. Focusing on household sets, the proposal describes a cross-cultural developmental design for identifying points of agreement and disagreement in the moral codes of children (ages 4-6, 8-10, 12-14) and adults in India and the United States. India and the United States have been selected for comparison because their cultural traditions radically contrast in ways directly relevant to the study of superego formation and the origins of self. The proposal describes a series of methods for investigating moral codes including iterative ethnographic interviewing and the sociolinguistic analysis of accusations and excuses in "situations of accountability." The project traces the origins in children of the sentiments and understandings that distinguish normal conscience ridden functioning from the functioning of the clinical psychopath.